Scatter the Ashes
by Stratusfear
Summary: Ayashi no CeresYYH Cross Over. Maya Hirobe returns to her birthplace after long years of absence and meets up with an old friend...an old friend who happens to be a fox demon in disguise...


**Scatter the Ashes**

By: Stratusfear

**Summary:** YYH/Ayashi no Ceres Cross Over. Maya returns to her hometown after years of absence and bumps into a few familiar faces….one of whom is a certain red-haired fox demon in disguise.

**Disclaimer:** Rated M for implied rape and violent abuse. I do not own any of the characters from either Yu Yu Hakusho or Ayashi no Ceres, and I am not making any kind of profit off of this whatsoever.

It was July, around 9:00 at night, and there were still a few wisps of light visible from the sunset that was obscured by the tall buildings in the distance and the stalls lining the streets, dominating the sky with the red glow of the lanterns the proprietors had hung. The stalls offered a variety of things, from contests to raffles to food, and the proprietors loudly encouraged customers to come on over. I had chosen to wear a yukata that I thought matched my mood, and, I guess, my current situation. It was a soft pink yukata with a pattern of deep purple tulips. That's right - purple on pink. I'm not even sure where I got this...maybe my mom picked this out for me in Miyagi. I found it in my luggage when I was settling into my dorm. I'm feeling kind of pissed off at this place, so I figured I'd make everyone's eyes bleed. I'm starting to wonder what possessed me to come back here. I could've finished my senior year in Tokyo...but I've never lived in a big city before, just towns, like Miyagi and this place. Miyagi...I know I had less than a year left of my senior year, but I just couldn't stay there. Not after what happened...

"Maya!" I heard a familiar voice calling me. That was a shock. I hadn't expected to meet anyone I knew from Miyagi here. I turned around and saw Aya waving at me and pushing her way through the crowd. She was wearing western clothing, as a lot of people do when they go to festivals; they are very convenient and easy to move in, after all. Because of the sash that holds the shirt portion closed and the skirt portion up, yukata and kimono can be kind of a pain to wear when you need to do a lot of moving around.

"How are you, Maya?" Aya asked. "What are you doing in this town? I'm here with Tooya and Miku, my daughter." I could see that Aya was starting to back away from me slightly; she probably didn't even know she was doing it. Her smile was subtly, gradually morphing into a cringe. She hadn't expected to see me here and was now realizing that she had not wanted to see me here.

"Well, I lived here fourteen years of my life. I only moved to Miyagi after my mom remarried. I actually grew up here. Though I guess what with the short time you spent in Miyagi, I didn't get much of a chance to tell you that." When I realized what I'd just said, I was the one cringing. I wanted to rewind and delete it. After all, I knew better than anyone _why_ Aya had spent such a short time in Miyagi.

"Um, so you came back here because…you know." She left it at that. I decided to pick up where she left off.

"Yeah, I know, it's stupid. I mean, that happened two years ago, when we were sixteen. I survived two whole years in Miyagi, why not just finish high school there altogether? But…I don't know, I guess I'd just had all I could take. Two years of pretending everything was fine was almost too much for me as it was. I was sick of being around people who'd ask me what was wrong while in reality they didn't want to know."

"Um…yeah. What's in that canteen?" She asked, pointing at the blue container in my handbag. This had been an attempt to change the subject. Too bad for her.

"It's not a canteen, actually, it's an urn. It has Mamoru's ashes in it." I said, watching as her eyes widened. She looked like her heart stopped. I mean, carrying your dead dog's ashes around is weird, I'll admit, but that was kind of a dramatic reaction.

"Oh…you mean your dog's…" Looks like for a minute Aya thought I meant my ex-boyfriend's ashes. I see Mamoru the dog and Mamoru the guy as being so totally separate that half the time I don't even think of them as having the same name. No wonder she got so freaked out. Yeah right, Aya. I went all the way to Tokyo, murdered Mamoru, somehow managed to get him cremated without anyone noticing, and then I came here specifically to tell you about it. She's seen too many horror movies, I think. She was there when it happened, she saw how Mamoru died. It's not that big of a jump for her to realize whose ashes I'm carrying, and _why_ I'm carrying them.

"Um…I have to go back to my daughter now. It was nice seeing you again." She hurried off without waiting for me to reply in kind. She was almost _running_. I sighed and turned around, heading in the opposite direction for kindness's sake. When I thought about how that's the kind of treatment I would have received in Miyagi from _everyone_ who ever asked me "Are you okay?" if I would've answered them honestly, I had the perverse urge to turn around and follow her and hit her in the face when I caught up. I stewed over that for a while, wandering around aimlessly without much of a sense of where I was going. My only attempt at navigation was to make certain I didn't run into anyone. I was snapped out of this stupor when my right wrist was suddenly yanked violently, and then the weight where the bag had been hanging was suddenly gone. I looked down and the bag wasn't there, and when I looked up I saw a guy in a tracksuit running away with it. Someone was taking Mamoru from me. Again.

"No! Stop! Please! MAMORU!" These mysterious exclamations weren't much of an indication that something had been stolen from me. If anything, I'm sure it sounded more like I was getting molested. But someone figured it out. As I was going crazy, someone suddenly leapt in front of the thief and did…_something_ that ended with the thief prone on the ground. It was a person wearing a mask, one of the fox masks they traditionally sell at these festivals. Weird. Usually it's kids that wear those. It was kind of creepy seeing an older person wear one, I mean, masks are so eerily expressionless, especially when they have a smile painted on them, like this one did. I was for a moment in doubt as to my savior's gender because of the long hair that was trailing all the way down to his waist. Then I realized he was wearing a man's yukata. To foreigners, the man's yukata and the woman's yukata probably look exactly the same, but the man's yukata is baggier and the sleeves are shorter. My savior was wearing a yukata that was black on one side and green on the other, with a bamboo leaf pattern that was black on the green side and green on the black side. He deftly bended down and snatched my bag away, then started looking around for its owner.

"Um…it's mine." I called, walking cautiously up to him. He looked at me then a jolt seemed to run through him, and he reached up and tore the mask away. I gasped.

"Maya-chan? That is you, isn't it?" It was Shuuichi Minamino. He had grown his hair out – it used to be cropped really short. Up until this moment I had halfway forgotten about him, but seeing him now made it all come back to me with crystal clarity even if he was older.

"Yes, that's me." If I had calculated the odds of us meeting up here, I would have said it was one in a million. But I hadn't calculated the odds of us meeting here, because it had been four years since we saw each other last. Which was actually kind of stupid of me, really, because he did grow up here just like me.

"I didn't expect to see you here. Or ever again, actually. I'm glad." His voice had that same distant tone I remembered from four years ago, but there was a fondness to it that I didn't recognize. His eyes had lost that cold sheen and replaced it with a gentle glow. He had really pretty eyes – really pretty everything. If it weren't for the boy's uniform he was required to wear to whatever high school he was going to, I bet he'd get mistaken for a girl a lot. Still, from what I could see past the yukata he did look fairly toned, no surprise since if what I saw him do to that mugger was any indication, he knows some style of martial arts. He was looking at the bag now, his curiosity aroused by the urn. He gently shook the bag, brow creasing in confusion as he heard the dry sifting sound of the ashes inside.

"It's an urn. There's ashes inside." I told him bluntly. For some reason the fact that this was the second time in one night that I was explaining this to someone really depressed me. Shuuichi looked up sharply, his frown sharpening with worry now.

"A relative's? Not your mother's, I hope?" He quickly handed them back to me, though it seemed to be more a gesture of respect than discomfort. His reaction was so far removed from what Aya's had been that I was in danger of going into shock, so I didn't have the presence of mind to cushion that statement like I should have.

"No, no, not my mother's. They're the ashes of my dog, Mamoru, who died two years ago." I told him hurriedly.

"Oh, I see." He said, and then the conversation broke down into a _really_ uncomfortable silence that seemed to go on forever.

"I'm sorry I got you involved in…that. I guess you must have been with someone, so I should probably go." I said finally in desperation, as Shuuichi didn't seem like he felt the need to disengage. I fully expected him to be with a girl, it was almost an impossibility that he wouldn't be given his good looks.

"I was my pleasure to help you, and actually I'm not with anyone. In fact, I was wondering if you'd like to spend the evening with me." Shuuichi sounded like he'd been teleported from fifty years in the past, which is exactly how I remember him. He talks to _everyone_ in the manner you'd speak to someone you'd never met before: wary and formal.

"Shuuichi…Trust me, you really don't want to get involved with me." I said wearily. At that point I really just wanted to go back to my dorm, curl up into a fetal position and lie there till I fell asleep. Bumping into Aya had been strenuous enough as it was, but this…

"Oh? Do you have a boyfriend?" He asked sharply, sounding as if his life depended on the answer.

"Well, no. But…" Why I didn't just lie and say I did continues to elude me. It must have been because my brain was tired, because it was the easiest way to get out of that situation with no questions asked.

"Well, then, I'm lucky. Maya-chan, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you to go out with me again, like we did before you moved away." He had to be kidding. We were fourteen when we did that and we barely even knew what we were doing. The big highlight of that relationship was that time we got our picture taken together. I'm surprised he still even remembers it.

"Um, Shuuichi, I'm not joking, you _really_ don't want to get involved with me, and especially not like _that_." I was in no shape to have this conversation. My urge to go home and crash increased a thousand fold.

"At any rate, we can't talk about this here." For about two seconds I thought I was off the hook, but then he rushed on, "Remember that man-made river that's near here, the one we all used to go to after school sometimes? Let's go there."

Before I could reply he took me by the hand and dragged me along after him as he expertly navigated through the crowds. I don't know how I kept up with him considering my legs felt like someone had taken the bones out of them. Almost the instant after he'd taken my hand, we were there, standing by the rushing water in the shadow of the overpass that was built over the river. He let go of my hand and turned to face me. I was really glad it was dark and we couldn't see each other very well, because I was an inch away from crying because of the frustration of it all.

"Why won't you go out with me? From the way you said it, it's not necessarily that you don't like me." He demanded, getting straight to the point. This was turning into a total nightmare. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and counted to ten.

"I won't go out with you because…because I know it'll be just like it was with my ex-boyfriend. I'd tell you about it eventually, and then you'd leave me just like he did." Wow. That was kind of hardcore. I definitely must have been tired to go straight to that. Even after what happened with Mamoru, I'd never come close to even hinting to Aya about that.

"Tell me about what? Why not just put it to the test and tell me now." Even the way he said it made it sound like a challenge. I opened my eyes again and glared at him.

"From the time I was twelve, to the time when my mom remarried and took me to Miyagi, my dad, he…he used to abuse me, and he…he raped me a few times. Not only that, the thing that set him off was one time when I was twelve I mentioned to him that I really liked _you_." There. Let him chew on that. He looked shocked all right. His eyes widened and took on an empty expression and he looked down at the ground. At his sides his hands clenched into fists.

"So…those times when you came to school with bruises. Those weren't from accidents like you said. I should have realized." He said very quietly. Then he walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. His touch was very gentle, but also very firm. It had none of the hesitancy or discomfort that I always sensed from Mamoru, Aya, my mom, my step-dad, anyone who had ever tried to give me false comfort. I had to pull away. It was just too intense and too different from anything I'd experienced before that.

"Oh, please. Even if you'd have realized, exactly what would you have done about it? You were fourteen, my dad would've kicked your ass." I said flippantly, trying to dispel his guilt via pragmatism.

"Yes, but if he had beat me up for trying to protect you at least then someone might have noticed what was really going on." He muttered, sounding as if he were talking to himself. Then he broke the distance I'd placed between us and pressed his forehead gently against mine and looked into my eyes. "You told me and I'm still here. What other reason do you have not to go out with me now?"

"Because I'm just like my dad, that's why. After my boyfriend left me I took all my anger out on my dog, Mamoru. I beat him and even cut him with a knife a few times." I was genuinely exasperated. I was pulling out all the stops. I knew the things I was saying were making it more and more likely that he'd avoid me for the rest of our lives, but I was at my wit's end. I just wanted him to leave me alone.

"If you're such a cruel person, why carry your dog's ashes with you wherever you go? It's a clear sign of love and remorse. How did Mamoru die? Did you kill him? I doubt it." Shuuichi countered, hands closing on my shoulders again. I flinched. He didn't know how right he was.

"No, I didn't kill him. He saved my life from a serial killer that had been stalking me." I admitted. It was a lie. I wonder if Shuuichi knew that. I had killed Mamoru, tasted his blood in my mouth and his pain in my mind. It had been horrible. I still woke up screaming almost every night from that memory. Even in spite of everything I still couldn't tell him about my ten'nyo powers. I wonder if I'll ever be able to really confess to anyone about the people I hurt with them. The only person who knows besides me and Maya is my Mom, and she's a nervous wreck because of it. Kind of deterred me from wanting to tell anyone else.

"You keep him with you because you don't want to be alone. So even though you say you don't want me with you, I know it's not true. I am not like your ex-boyfriend. I am not weak like that. And if you don't feel normal, if you feel twisted inside, you're not alone. I've always been distant from other people. I was a creature without empathy from a very young age, but you approached me and saved me from becoming a waste of a human being, even though I had never treated you with anything but contempt before I asked you to be my girlfriend. Just like Mamoru saved you even though you had done terrible things to him. He saved you because he knew deep down inside you really loved him, and you saved me four years ago because you knew that I was capable of loving you. You are the first person I ever loved and I do not think this feeling I have for you will ever go away." I didn't say anything after that. I didn't need to say anything, because what could I say? What could I say to that?

The next day Shuuichi took me out to the seashore, and I scattered Mamoru's ashes to the four winds, out over the deep blue ocean. I set him free. He deserves to rest in peace, after what I did to him, after what he did for me. I have someone else who'll stay with me now.

Owari


End file.
